In the News

International Council of Shopping Centers - News Release

May 21, 2013

According to this news release:
“Physical retailers such as Target and Walmart are investing in
technology to better compete with increasingly powerful Internet-based titans
such as Amazon, Google, eBay, Facebook and Apple for consumers' attention and
dollars, panelists said at a session Monday at RECon, in Las Vegas.

Increasingly, stores are scaling back their space needs and
stocking only core merchandise while better facilitating ordering and delivery
of their broader selections online, said Michelle Crames, vice president of
social commerce solutions for Los Angeles-based Revionics. Walmart, for one,
has acknowledged that it's allowing third-party vendors to sell goods on its
website to expand its competitive offerings, she added.

Macy's is another brick-and-mortar-based
retailer that is managing to grow
e-commerce sales while maintaining traffic at its stores, said Lori Schafer,
executive retail adviser for Middletown, Mass.-based SAS Institute. In 2012,
9.5
percent of Macy's sales were from e-commerce, Schafer said. 'Others are
moving
in that direction, including Walmart, which is making corporate acquisitions in
the e-commerce space; CVS, which now has a chief digital officer; and Staples,
which has shrunken its store footprint and become much more omnichannel,'
she
added.

Amazon isn't an easy foe to compete with. A $60 billion
retailer today, it is projected to become a $100 billion retailer by 2015 and a
$200 billion juggernaut by 2017, noted Schafer. ‘At its current growth rate,
Amazon will surpass Walmart in annual sales in 2023,’ she said. The company has
diversified into business-to-business sales, data mining, TV and movie
production and other industries, mostly in an effort to drive retail traffic to
its site, Schafer said.

Moreover, Amazon is committed to building up to 150 fulfillment
centers throughout the U.S. ‘That's so they can fulfill their plan of being
able to make same-day delivery to every home in the U.S.,’ said Deborah
Weinswig, managing director of New York-based Citigroup.

For that reason, Amazon isn't overly concerned with the Main
Street Fairness Act, recently passed in the Senate and soon to be considered in
the House. ‘They are going to be in every state anyway,’ said Jeffrey Newman,
an attorney and senior partner in the real estate department of Newark-based
Sills Cummis & Gross.”